Nato appoints anti-war protester as next secretary general

Jens Stoltenberg, Norway's former Labour prime minister, will lead military
alliance as it grapples with resurgent Russia's ambitions in Ukraine

Jens Stoltenberg, the Nato General SecretaryPhoto: REUTERS

Agency reports

9:08PM GMT 28 Mar 2014

Nato has appointed Jens Stoltenberg, the former Norwegian prime minister leader who once opposed the transatlantic alliance, to lead it when Anders Fogh Rasmussen, its current secretary general, steps down later this year.

In his youth Mr Stoltenberg, now 55, objected both to Nato and the European Community, two organisations that he eventually came to support, and as a long-haired teenager he threw stones at the US embassy in 1973 after Washington's bombardment of Haiphong in North Vietnam.

Mr Stoltenberg's dignified response to the terror attacks that killed 77 people in July 2011 made him an internationally recognised figure. At the memorial service for the victims of Right-wing fanatic Anders Breivik his promise to combat the atrocity with "more democracy, more openness, and more humanity" helped salve the country's wounds.

However his coalition suffered a year later when an independent inquest into the bomb and gun attacks found a litany of failures by police and security services that might have disrupted or even prevented the slaughter, and he was ousted from power last September when Norway tilted to the Right.

In almost a decade leading Labour and the Norwegian government, Mr Stoltenberg became known as a consensus maker, giving him some of right credentials to maintain good relations with Russia, with which Norway shares a border, diplomats said.

Poland's more hawkish foreign minister Radoslaw Sikorski, who was also a contender for the Nato job, congratulated Stoltenberg on his appointment. He said he was sure that the new Nato head "will strive for equal security for all members", an oblique reminder to remember its eastern-most members on Russia's border.

Mr Stoltenberg was the only candidate whose name was formally on the table after months of behind-the-scenes horse-trading and negotiation between the alliance's 28 member states.